Challenges of organ transplantation

Organ transplantation has developed in the past 50 years from a primitive therapeutic attempt to an accepted and much sought after form of treatment. During the same period, bone marrow transplantation, a form of cell transplantation, also has become established with similar successes provided the donor and recipient are well matched. The next challenges in transplantation are to overcome the donor shortage and to devise new ways of treating diseases that at present have unsuccessful management. The transplantation of cells programmed to produce essential proteins is an important goal, especially if the cells were autologous, for example, adult stem cells persuaded to produce insulin and act as surrogate beta cells. In this short article, I have reviewed some of the progress and difficulties of cell transplantation, which is currently a popular and intense area of research worldwide.